Battle of Barnet 1471
Outline: officially registered battlefield boundary.
Key facts
| Date (year) | 1471 | Historic England NHLE name |
|---|---|---|
| Century | 15th century | derived |
| Period | Wars of the Roses & late medieval | derived |
| Country | England | derived |
| War / conflict | Wars of the Roses | Wikidata |
| Participants | House of Lancaster, House of York | Wikidata |
| Registered area | 112.1 ha | Historic England |
| Grid reference | TQ 24514 97590 | Historic England |
| Historic England list entry | 1000001 | Historic England |
| Designated | 1995-06-06 | Historic England |
About the battle
The Battle of Barnet was a decisive Yorkist victory in the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic conflict of 15th-century England. The military action, along with the subsequent Battle of Tewkesbury, secured the throne for Edward IV.
On Sunday 14 April 1471, Easter Day, near Barnet, then a small Hertfordshire town north of London, Edward led the House of York in a fight against the House of Lancaster, which backed Henry VI for the throne. Leading the Lancastrian army was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who played a crucial role in the fate of each king. Historians regard the battle as one of the most important clashes in the Wars of the Roses, since it brought about a decisive turn in the fortunes of the two houses. Edward's victory was followed by 14 years of Yorkist rule over England.
Formerly a key figure in the Yorkist cause, Warwick defected to the Lancastrians over disagreements about Edward's nepotism, secret marriage, and foreign policy. Leading a Lancastrian army, the earl defeated his former allies, forcing Edward to flee to Burgundy in October 1470. The Yorkist king persuaded his host, Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, to help him regain the English throne.
Visiting the battlefield
English Heritage, a government body in charge of conservation of historic sites, roughly locates the battlefield in an area 800 to 1600 metres (0.5 to 1.0 mile) north of the town of Barnet. Over the centuries, much of the terrain has changed, and records of the town's boundaries and geography are not detailed enough for English Heritage or historians to conclude the exact location of the battle. Geographical features corresponding to contemporary descriptions allow approximations of where the fighting took place.
English Heritage suggests that a 15th-century letter from a Hanseatic merchant, Gerhard von Wessel, helps to identify the battlefield via geological features.
Location
- OS grid reference: TQ 24514 97590
- Approximate centre of registered area: 51.6617, -0.2010
- Registered area: 112.1 hectares
Battlefields are often on private farmland: please keep to public rights of way and respect landowners.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Barnet (revision 1370107495), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Battlefield”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations removed. No text added.
Battlefield data © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.